Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Picturing History Series) [Hardcover]

Peter Burke (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 080143968X | ISBN-13: 978-0801439681 | Publication Date: August 2001

Eyewitnessing evaluates the place of images among other kinds of historical evidence. By reviewing the many varieties of images by region, period and medium, and looking at the pragmatic uses of images (e.g. the Bayeux Tapestry, an engraving of a printing press, a reconstruction of a building), Peter Burke sheds light on our assumption that these practical uses are 'reflections' of specific historical meanings and influences. He also shows how this assumption can be problematic. Traditional art historians have depended on two types of analysis when dealing with visual imagery, iconography and iconology. Burke describes and evaluates these approaches, concluding that they are insufficient. Focusing instead on the medium as message and on the social contexts and uses of images, he discusses both religious images and political ones, also looking at images in advertising and as commodities. Ultimately, Burke's purpose is to show how iconographic and post-iconographic methods - psychoanalysis, semiotics, viewer response, deconstruction - are both useful and problematic to contemporary historians.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Provides us with a compendium ... which continues the long process of restoring the balance between written documentation and optical representation as carriers of historical information ... a thoroughly engrossing explication of how fine art, graphics, photographs, film and other media can be used to make sense of lives lived out in other times Tate Magazine Well-informed and fair-minded, and it prompts one to ponder -- Michael Baxandall English Historical Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Peter Burke is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge. His recent books include The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (1998) and A Social History of Knowledge from Gutenberg to Diderot (2000). --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 223 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080143968X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801439681
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,753,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ideas about images as evidence, May 6, 2003

By 

J. Wiedemer "Ms. Kogepan" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Picturing History Series) (Hardcover)

Burke discusses using images as historical resources and evidence, focusing on both the positive insights that might be garnered from imagery as well as the potential problems. One such historiographical danger is that the historian might view images from within their present context and not with the same significance or contextual milieu that the original historical actors might have attributed to them. This point, and others throughout the text, are elementary to many historians; others could use a friendly reminder of presentist tendencies. While there is nothing revolutionary to modern historians in Burke's text, it is a pleasant reminder of some of the pitfalls in constructing historical narrative based on visual evidence.